Dear Eve

By Heather Bartlett


The answer to your question is not
in the longing, the rage
and range
the reaching – what will you find
when your hand touches
something solid? Behind
the wooden door you close
and latch so carefully, as if the sound
of closing alone will echo
off the empty walls, the scent
of someone else’s breath is shut in
with you.
You are alone
as before she moved
her small body
under yours.
And here, inhaling
swallowing, holding it
as the poem you forgot
you’d already written, this is not
the love that carried you
away to this small suburban
space, where the dirty light
from under the door
illuminates only
what has fallen from your hand.


HEATHER BARTLETT received her MFA in Poetry from Hunter College. Her poems have appeared in RealPoetik, California Quarterly, Conte, Melusine, The Evening Street Review, Third Wednesday, and others. Her chapbook, Bleeding Yellow Light, was published by From Yes Press in 2009. Before settling into teaching, Heather has worked as a copy clerk at The New York Post, as a publishing assistant for small press that publishes French literary translations, at an engineering firm, and at a window store. She is also an Associate Scottish Highland Dance teacher. Currently, she teaches writing and literature at Ithaca College and SUNY Cortland in upstate New York, and is Assistant Editor at Split Oak Press. She writes, grades papers, and longs for New York City from her small apartment in Ithaca, New York.

One response to “Dear Eve”

  1. Lou says:

    Really powerful poem. A pleasure to read. Thanks.

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